How Citizens Meet the State
Police Contact, Trust, and Civic Engagement
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6404971 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jacob R Turner (0000-0002-2279-1830, Department of Political Science, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN USA, corresponding author), Maggie Shum (0000-0002-8002-5480, Department of Political Science, Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, Erie, PA, USA) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 61 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 3-37 |
| Publication date | 2025-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Urban Affairs Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1078-0874 • E-ISSN: 1552-8332 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/10780874241241228 |
| OpenAlex | W4393982953 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 57 |
This paper investigates the relationship between the police, the most visible street-level bureaucrat of local city governments, and citizen political attitudes and behaviors toward local city institutions. We introduce a holistic conceptualization of police-citizen contact and examine how each type impacts citizen trust toward and participation in political institutions. Leveraging an original survey targeting the city of South Bend and spatial data from the city government, results demonstrate that greater day-to-day contact with police has a positive impact on trust in state agencies while citizens who seek service from the police but are left unsatisfied result in lower trust in state apparatus. Most importantly, indirect exposure to police coercion has a negative impact on trust while direct and proximal contact with police predicts higher level of civic activism. This study demonstrates the fragility and challenge of building trust in police-citizen relationships, and how extreme encounters with the police can, in the right circumstances, spur citizen activism
Civic engagement · Criminology · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Sociology · State (computer science · Computer Science · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Law · Policing Practices and Perceptions · Public Administration
The functions of the police in modern society
Suspect Citizens
Pulled Over
The Effects of Police Violence on Inner-City Students
What makes democracy work?
Citizen Satisfaction with Police Encounters
Attitudes Toward the Police
State Power and Social Forces
Bringing the State Back In
Race, Neighbourhood Context and Perceptions of Injustice by the Police in Cincinnati
Withdrawing and Drawing In
Can Light Contact with the Police Motivate Political Participation? Evidence from Traffic Stops
Public Criminology and Media Debates Over Policing
Institutional Activism
Deconcentration without Integration
What citizens can see of the state”
Policing and social identity
Asymmetry in the Impact of Encounters with Police
What matters in citizen satisfaction with police
Public cooperation and the police
Policing gentrification or policing displacement? Testing the relationship between order maintenance policing and neighbourhood change in Los Angeles
Communicating security? Policing urban spaces and control signals
Welcome Home—Now Vote! Voting Rights Restoration and Postsupervision Participation
Police legitimacy regimes and the suppression of citizen oversight in response to police violence
Neighborhoods and Felony Disenfranchisement
Policing Temporality
The State from Below
Exploitative Revenues, Law Enforcement, and the Quality of Government Service
Do Officer-Involved Shootings Reduce Citizen Contact with Government
Contact and Context
Does Incarceration Reduce Voting? Evidence about the Political Consequences of Spending Time in Prison
Recruiting large online samples in the United States and India
Neighborhood Disorder and Local Participation
Police Are Our Government
Street Stops and Police Legitimacy
Staying out of Sight? Concentrated Policing and Local Political Action
Consequences of Family Member Incarceration
Effects of Imprisonment and Community Supervision on Neighborhood Political Participation in North Carolina
How the Criminal Justice System Educates Citizens
"Becoming "Copwise
Surveillance and System Avoidance
Do Police Brutality Stories Reduce 911 Calls? Reassessing an Important Criminological Finding
Police Violence and Citizen Crime Reporting in the Black Community
Situational Trust
Stop, Frisk, and Assault? Racial Disparities in Police Use of Force During Investigatory Stops
Establishing the Rule of Law in Weak and War-torn States
The Countervailing Effects of Competition on Public Goods Provision
Relational State Building in Areas of Limited Statehood
Networks in Context
Trust is hard to come by
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2025 (2) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |